How to merge html cells with powershell script

Question

I'm trying to create a html table with a CSV as source, which needs a few format including add color based on cell value, and merge the first column if the value is same as the next row.

However, 1. the color part works 2. the merge part doesn't work. there is no error but nothing gets merged.

can someone please help to check?

$file = import-csv I:\SCRIPT\IPCNewScript\BackupCode\ResultFinal.csv


$HTMLBody += "<span style='font-family:Courier New;font-size:12pt'>"   # Due to blank space problem


$head = @'
<title>Table</title>
<style>
body { background-color:#E5E4E2;
       font-family:Monospace;
       font-size:10pt; }
td, th { border:0px solid black; 
         border-collapse:collapse;
         white-space:pre; }
th { color:white;
     background-color:black; }
table, tr, td, th { padding: 2px; margin: 0px ;white-space:pre; }
tr:nth-child(odd) {background-color: lightgray}
table { width:95%;margin-left:5px; margin-bottom:20px;}
h2 {
 font-family:Tahoma;
 color:#6D7B8D;
}
.warning {
 color: orange; 
 }
 .issue {
 color: red; 
 }
 .mergecol {
 rowspan="2";
 }
</style>
'@



[xml]$html = $file | convertTo-Html -fragment -As table



for ($j=4; $j -le $html.table.tr[1].td.count-1; $j++){
    if(($html.table.tr[1].td[$j] -as [string]) -eq "Sun" ){ 
        for ($i=2; $i -le $html.table.tr.count-1; $i++){
            $class = $html.CreateAttribute("class")
            $class.value = 'warning'
            $html.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[$j].Attributes.append($class) | out-null
        }
    } 
    else {
        for ($i=2; $i -le $html.table.tr.count-1; $i++){
            if (($html.table.tr[$i].td[$j] -as [int]) -eq 0){
                 $class = $html.CreateAttribute("class")
                 $class.value = 'issue'
                 $html.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[$j].Attributes.append($class) | out-null
            }
        }
    }}

    #merge column
    for ($i =1; $i -le $html.table.tr.count-2; $i++){
        if (($html.table.tr[$i].td[0] -as [string]) -eq  ($html.table.tr[$i+1].td[0] -as [string]))
        {
            $class = $html.CreateAttribute("class")
            $class.value = 'mergecol'
            $html.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[0].Attributes.append($class) | out-null 
            $i++
         }
    }
    convertto-html -head $head -body $($html.innerxml) | out-file "I:\SCRIPT\IPCNewScript\BackupCode\final28.htm"

Answer 1

I've cleaned up the code in your question a little bit (indenting and the like).

There is some questionable logic in the loops you have iterating over the table elements. There's no reference to $j in the #merge column inner-loop. The two loops do not appear to be related, so why are they nested?

You are also calling ConvertTo-HTML on every iteration over $j which seems pretty questionable.

for ($j=4; $j -le $html.table.tr[1].td.count-1; $j++){
    <# Colorizing code removed for clarity #>

    <# Do you really want to merge columns on every iteration over $j? #>
    #merge column
    for ($i =1; $i -le $html.table.tr.count-2; $i++){
        if (($html.table.tr[$i].td[0] -as [string]) -eq  ($html.table.tr[$i+1].td[0] -as [string]))
        {
            $class = $html.CreateAttribute("class")
            $class.value = 'mergecol'
            $html.table.tr[$i].ChildNodes[0].Attributes.append($class) | out-null 
            $i++
         }
    }
    <# Do you really want to ConvertTo-HTML on every iteration over $j? #>
    convertto-html -head $head -body $($html.innerxml) | out-file "I:\SCRIPT\IPCNewScript\BackupCode\final28.htm"
}